MAP03: The Gantlet (Doom II)

MAP03: The Gantlet (also called The Gauntlet) is the third map of Doom II. It was designed by American McGee and uses the music track "Countdown To Death". The par time is 2:00. The new enemy chaingunner, third and strongest type of hell-possessed human soldier, debuts in this map, only if played on skill level Hurt me plenty or higher.

The unusual spelling of the name of the level, "The Gantlet" is an archaic version of the modern word "Gauntlet", intentionally chosen by Sandy Petersen; it is deliberate and not a misspelling.

Essentials
Enter the door straight ahead of you at the start of the level. Go down the stairs and through the doorway at the bottom, then ascend another set of stairs. Follow the path left, along past the lift to the end. There is a small river of water crossing the path - follow it left to get a megaarmor. Return to the lift you passed earlier and ride it up.

In the next area, go straight down some stairs, across the water, back up another set, and down some more into the structure, where a chaingun lies. Continue going forward, up yet another set of stairs, to get the blue key. Enter the blue door on the left and follow the corridor to its end, where a switch is found. Press the switch, which causes a bridge to rise in the water area, and exit through the blue door next to it. Go right, going down and then up the stairs again. On the far side, turn around and walk on the ledge to reach the bridge that rose. Cross it and go through the teleporter.

In the next area, go through the door, then drop down into the grassy pit. Pick up the red keycard in the center. There are two switches on the west end of this pit. The left switch opens a room on the far end of the pit that contains some armor bonuses, but also releases several monsters. The right switch lowers a lift to the left that takes you up to the red key door. Go through this door to reach the exit switch.

Official

 * 1) Upon reaching the watery outdoor area, you will find a "well" set against the southern wall of the southern pool. (sector 67) In order to get into the secret area, the player must run along the raised walkway which leads into the level's final teleporter. Alternatively, it is possible to straferun into the "well" from the stairway leading down into the water. If playing the game with a source port that allows jumping, the player can simply jump into the well. The secret contains another megaarmor, an energy cell pack, a partial invisibility, and a supercharge.

Non-official

 * 1) After activating the bridge that leads to the inaccessible teleporter, return to the starting point, climb down the stairs and turn left twice. Standing on the water spot where the megaarmor is/was causes a panel containing several shotgun guys to open up on the ground level, right aside the set of stairs. Take the teleporter inside it to grab the first backpack in the game. Alternative way: after activating the bridge, approach the secret "well" described above, turn west and open the noticeably detached wall. This secret is not present in versions of Doom II prior to v1.9.

Design oddities
Sector 85, the pillar with a rocket launcher on top, has the floor texture, a green marble texture. All other similar areas in the map have the floor texture. This map had a different color scheme with mostly marble textures and got re-textured and this is most likely a left-over from that. The column is only reachable from a teleporter, making it harder to notice this error.

Sector 0 contains linedefs that outline a fifth step in the stair up to player start. As this step had the exact same properties as the ground floor, DoomBSP most likely merged these two areas into one sector automatically. The end result is that the map has three linedefs that serve no real purpose.

In multiplayer, the well secret contains two energy cell packs and a BFG9000. One of the energy cell packs is not flagged multiplayer only, and shows up in single-player mode, yet there are no single-player weapons that use cells until MAP05: The Waste Tunnels.

Routes and tricks
It is possible to straferun into the window that lets you see behind the blue door and press the switch. Alternatively, using strafe 50, it is possible to straferun into the teleporter without the bridge; however, it may take a few tries.

Current Compet-n records
The Compet-n records for the map are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on July 5, 2020.

Current DSDA records
The records for the map at the Doom Speed Demo Archive are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on September 18, 2023.

Player spawns
This level contains four spawn points:
 * 1) facing south. (thing 11)
 * 2) facing east. (thing 88)
 * 3) facing east. (thing 89)
 * 4) facing south. (thing 90)

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level:

Inspiration and development
An early version of this map was released in 2015. It has completely different texturing work compared to the final version, consisting of a marble and stone theme reminiscent of the third act of the game. This was changed to a tech base theme before the release of the game.